Vancouver chips in to help fund New Years Eve celebration

Downtown Vancouver will play host to its first public New Years Eve celebration in decades.

It comes as council approves a bid for a grant from the city to help fund the event.

Councillor George Affleck says the event could be an important step for Vancouver to help shed its dubious reputation as a no-fun city.

“There’s nothing worse than seeing those shots from CNN of London and Sydney and Toronto and then they get to Vancouver and it’s just darkness, that’s just not what we want, we want a fun city and a New Year’s Eve event is a crucial part of that.”

The city has agreed to kick in a $125-thousand grant to help fund the event.

Affleck says if this year is successful, he hopes we’ll see a New Year’s Celebration annually in Vancouver.

“The grant we approved today was for one-time. The goal is once they’ve had a good startup they can go and seek more corporate donations and other donations and other grants and they and they can apply for any grants that the city might have are relevent to them.”